How Advertising and Marketing Got Started

Advertising, as we know it, probably started to prosper in 1904 when John E. Kennedy gave the world that definition: Advertising is Salesmanship-in-Print. A definition that has not been bettered since and many have tried.

But modern day advertising started a few years earlier than Kennedy when Richard Sears produced the very first mail order catalog (around 1892). This catalog contained hundreds of pages of articles for sale and each with their own sales copy. And Sears Roebuck is still going strong today, in marketing and sales.

Around this time, advertising agencies sprang up everywhere. And the people they employed and trained, left us with such treasures that all top marketers today display in their resource libraries and use to their advantage.

Shortly after Kennedy arrived on the scene, Claude Hopkins came along. He left us with a legacy we should all thank him for. He pioneered market testing, sampling, vouchers, and a whole lot more.

At the turn of the last century there were many others: Walter Dill Scott, Maxwell Sackheim, Haldeman Julius, John Caples, to name just four.

Then around the middle of the century such geniuses as Elmer Wheeler, Robert Collier and other contemporaries appeared.

Post war, advertising greats David Ogilvy, Joe Karbo, and Gary Halbert also made their mark.

And living legends Jay Abraham, John Carlton, Dan Kennedy, and Ted Nicholas, have all made many millions both for themselves and their clients.

Towards the end of the last century, the greatest marketing tool of all time was unleashed on the world – the Internet. Early pioneer of the Internet, Ken McCarthy, is still around and his “System” seminars are an absolute must attend.

The Internet has opened a whole new world for advertising and marketing. And a new breed of entrepreneur has been born. Guys like the late, great Corey Rudl, Marlon Sanders, Robert Imbriale, Yanik Silver, Jim Edwards and many others have shown what can be done and in such a short space of time.

But one thing all these “gurus” have in common is that they have studied the markets. They have studied the psychology of what makes people buy. They have learned these principles from the great masters of the past the John Kennedy’s, the Claude Hopkins, the Walter Dill Scott’s, the Elmer Wheeler’s.

And that’s what my articles are all about.

You will be taken from the very beginnings of advertising and get an insight into the writings, the ideas and the philosophies of most of the greatest marketers that ever lived.

For sure, you will recognise much of the material that is mentioned as we take the “tour” but it’s doubtful that you will have come across all of it.

All top marketers recommend that you continually add to your education and you will not do better than picking up any (or all) of the material that you will be exposed to on your “tour.”

Each manuscript mentioned in this “tour” is a desirable addition for your resource library.

Pick them up, maybe one at a time. And you will profit from them just like all the great masters have done past and present.

This article is a brief history of events leading up to the appearance of John E. Kennedy in 1904.

But it also highlights a few milestones in advertising.

1704 The first newspaper ad appeared. It was in a Boston Newsletter and sought a buyer for an estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island.

1729 Benjamin Franklin starts to publish the Pennsylvania Gazette in Philadelphia which included ads.

1742 America’s first magazine ads published by Benjamin Franklin in General Magazine.